Principal Machine Learning Engineer, Matching and Recommendations

At Bumble, our mission is to create a world where all relationships are healthy and equitable. As part of our AI & Matching team, this role sits at the forefront of shaping how millions of people connect, build friendships, and find meaningful relationships. Reporting into our SVP of AI & Data, you will play a critical role in advancing intelligent systems that power safe, personalised, and engaging user experiences across our platforms. This is a highly influential individual contributor role where your work will directly impact product strategy, user trust, and business outcomes at scale. You’ll operate with a high degree of ownership and curiosity, championing innovative approaches to machine learning while role modelling Bumble’s values of Curiosity and Excellence. From reimagining recommendation systems to embedding responsible AI practices, you’ll help us push boundaries while staying grounded in respect for our global community. AI is central to how we evolve our products and internal capabilities. In this role, you’ll not only build and scale advanced machine learning models, but also shape how AI is thoughtfully and responsibly applied across the organisation. What you'll do - - Define and lead the technical strategy for AI and Machine Learning systems that power recommendations, ranking, and personalization across Bumble products, delivering measurable improvements in user engagement and safety - Design, develop, and deploy production-grade models using modern ML frameworks such as PyTorch , ensuring scalability and reliability in high-traffic environments - Build and deploy production AI Agents using raw and fine-tuned foundational Large Language Models (LLMs), along with sub-agents, tools, and MCP integrations - Architect end-to-end ML pipelines, integrating data processing (e.g. Spark, Airflow) with model training, evaluation, and deployment workflows - Drive experimentation frameworks, including A/B testing and offline evaluation, to continuously improve model performance and product outcomes - Partner cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Data leadership to translate business challenges into impactful ML solutions, collaborating with purpose and influencing at senior levels - Mentor and elevate senior individual contributors, fostering a culture of Excellence, Curiosity, and continuous learning across the ML community - Take ownership of complex, ambiguous problem spaces, seeing initiatives through from insight to impact while adapting approaches with an agile mindset - Champion responsible AI practices, ensuring fairness, transparency, and user safety are embedded into all machine learning systems About You - - Typically requires 10–15 years of experience, though we welcome candidates with alternative backgrounds that demonstrate equivalent skills. - Deep expertise in machine learning, with hands-on experience building and deploying large-scale systems in production environments - Strong proficiency in Python and at least one major ML framework (e.g. PyTorch, TensorFlow), with experience in areas such as recommendation systems, ranking models, or NLP - Expertise in prompting and fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) and building production AI Agents - Proven experience designing scalable data and ML pipelines using tools such as Spark, Airflow, or similar distributed systems - Demonstrated ability to operate as a senior individual contributor, influencing technical strategy and decision-making without direct authority - Experience partnering effectively across functions, collaborating with purpose and taking ownership of outcomes in complex organisational environments - A track record of mentoring and uplifting others, role modelling Respect and Excellence while building inclusive, high-performing teams - Strong AI fluency, with the ability to independently design, evaluate, and optimise ML systems, and guide others in the responsible and effective application of AI About Us Bumble Inc. is the parent company of Bumble Date, BFF, and Badoo. The Bumble platform enables people to build healthy and equitable relationships, through Kind Connections. Founded by Whitney Wolfe Herd in 2014, Bumble was one of the first dating apps built with women at the center and connects people across dating (Bumble Date) and friendship (BFF). BFF is a friendship app where people in all stages of life can meet people nearby and create meaningful platonic connections and community based on shared interests. Badoo, which was founded in 2006, is one of the pioneers of web and mobile dating products. AI Fluency AI is important to us. We’re excited by people who are curious and experimental, and who think thoughtfully about how AI can amplify their impact and outcomes. We encourage you to use AI responsibly as you prepare your application. Please don’t use it to fabricate experiences or answer questions live in interviews. We care deeply about authenticity and want to understand your real skills,…